Nature of the 11 Plus in Sutton.

Stage 1 tests Maths and English (possibly GL) with Stage 2 (Maths and English) set by the school.

GL Maths.

These tests are straightforward and use a mix of calculation based shorter questions and longer worded questions or questions about graphs, data or angles. Children will be asked to work quickly and so for this reason there is a real focus on having absolutely rock solid core skills. Children who have forged too far ahead and who are working on topics beyond KS2 risk having done so at the expense of not having the core skills required. There’s absolutely no point in going beyond KS2 during the preparation phase. The difference between the good and the excellent in this test tends to be marked by an ability to work both quickly and accurately, a faultless grasp of tables and the four operations is essential. To find out more about the GL Maths test go to our page covering it in more detail.

GL English

English papers set by GL contain a number of different sections. These include comprehension, spelling, grammar and punctuation. The comprehension is not normally a difficult classic text but children may find unfamiliar vocabulary within it. The comprehension will be about 1000-1500 words long and children will then have answer 20-30 questions. These are classic comprehension questions that ask the children factual questions where the answer is in the text and inference questions where children will need to apply logic. The Grammar, Spelling and Punctuation elements do not go beyond KS2 and any child doing well at primary school and predicted a high level 5 should be able to cope well.

The second part of the test involves Maths and English Creative writing. Again these tests will be similar in character to other school written tests

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